As the second spell of the monsoon battered Chennai on Tuesday, many residents opened their homes and offered shelter to strangers stranded across the city. A document circulated on Twitter invited users to help out affected people by noting down their contact details and duration for which they were willing to provide refuge.




 

Tamil Nadu's respite from the northeast monsoon proved short-lived as heavy rain lashed the state and neighbouring Puducherry again on Tuesday, causing flooding in many parts.

December got off to a damp start in Chennai with heavy rain overnight. Tuesday morning made matters worse, with the city recording 73mm of rainfall between 8.30 am and 11.30 am. While road traffic was badly affected, trains and flights were also delayed as visibility was reduced to less than a kilometre. Waterlogging and flooding was reported from several places in the state capital.

For a second consecutive day, schools and educational institutions in Chennai remained closed. They had reopened on November 26 after a fortnight of heavy rain and flooding in the city.

“The trough of low pressure now lies over Southwest Bay adjoining Sri Lanka off Tamil Nadu,” said officials at the Regional Meteorological Center. The situation is unlikely to improve soon – the weather office has forecast “isolated extremely heavy rainfall” for Chennai, Kancheepuram and Tiruvallur on Wednesday.

The latest spell follows heavy rain in Tamil Nadu throughout November. It was declared on Monday that the amount of rain Chennai received in November was the highest on record. More than a hundred people in Tamil Nadu had lost their lives in the floods last month as the central government approved a Rs 940 crore relief package for the state.

In his radio address to the nation on Sunday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had alluded to the floods in Tamil Nadu, citing climate change as a likely factor.

The scenes in Chennai on Tuesday were reminiscent of the worst spell of the flooding in November.


Source: India Meteorological Department. 




 

A part of the road caved in near IIT Madras, leaving a 10-foot crater.


 

A Chennai resident posted a picture of "waves" on a road in the Kelambakkam area.

A crowdsourced effort to map the flooding showed that 917 roads in the city were waterlogged. Forced indoors, a number of people posted videos and pictures on Twitter and implored others not to venture out.



 



 



 



 



Ironically, one needed a boat to get across Chennai's Boat Club Road, as one twitter user pointed out.



Here is the scene at Tambaram railway station, as water inundated the tracks.

The airport and roads near it were also waterlogged.